


Close Your Eyes and I'll Come Near

by cuddlebone



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Archery, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Mythology References, Swords, Three Kingdoms Period, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 03:45:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13872423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlebone/pseuds/cuddlebone
Summary: If Soonyoung is dressed in plated metal armor, face hidden behind a helmet, and he holds his sword and shield over his heart, then he should be protected from even the most skilled warriors’ attacks. Right?Wrong. There’s this shadow of a man whose arrows aim for the gaps in his chain-mail and never miss their mark. But his target isn’t supposed to be Soonyoung’s heart, despite it being the bulls-eye he keeps hitting.(Soonyoung is a knight from Goguryeo, and Wonwoo is a warrior from Silla. They come from adversarial kingdoms, and love is the last thing on either of their minds.)





	Close Your Eyes and I'll Come Near

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Slightly violent, but not in a graphic way or a way that is harmful to Soonyoung or Wonwoo. Weapons! Weapons being used and brandished! War is a theme here, as are demons and shadows and tyrannical emperors. Angst and stuff, I guess. Hopefully this is an all-encompassing warning and I didn't miss anything that could be triggering/upsetting in this fic!
> 
> This is the second Winterstar prompt I was going to write, had I not run out of time and energy! I'm too lazy to go dig up the specific prompt, but it was a rival kingdoms enemies-to-lovers thing and I started thinking about this all the way back in October!!!!!

_Silver Tongue_

At the start of his journey south towards the border, the sky was high and clear, and the moon soaked the woodlands around him in silver light. Clouds are drifting in now, making visibility lower both because of how they obscur the moon and because of the fog creeping in around the tree trunks and low shrubbery. But still he spurs his horse onwards, breaking through the cold mist and dodging fallen logs and rocks, leaping over thin becks and cantering gently through slippery riverbeds.

 

He bade all his friends good-bye and even walked from the temple he trained and lived in to his hometown just to tell his mother he’d be gone on a journey- so why does he still feel uneasy? He feels like something is out of place, like he left the scrolls he’s on this mission to deliver back in his bedroom (here he stretches down to the side-saddle and gropes, and sure enough, the bag containing them is hanging right there), or almost like something’s watching him. His eyes cast around at the thought and his skin prickles.

 

Earlier, he’d even turned the horse around and trotted in wide circles in an open field, smelling the scents on the wind coming from all directions, peering through the fog, even drawing his sword. Nothing. The coast had been, and still is, absolutely clear.

 

There’s the sound of an owl hooting from the cluster of trees he’d just broken away from, riding parallel to them but not within them, because his horse runs better in meadows than in thick forest brush, but otherwise, the silence is as thick in the air as death is in a graveyard.

 

Back in the knights’ temple, he locked his box of valuables and hid it under his bed-mat, lest one of the intrusive younger warriors try to steal his bag of heavy bronze coins. He’s accumulated more _mun_ than he can handle after three years of service for the military training faction of _Goguryeo,_ and there’s more to come when he returns from this mission, and soon enough, when he’s elevated from simple knight to general. He isn’t money-hungry, nor is he typically so secretive and distrustful, but living in a place full of ill-mannered adolescents has given him no choice but to be.

 

So if he’s done all of that, there’s no reason for him to turn on his heels and pull his sword out- so quickly that the metal hisses- every time he hears twigs break and branches rustle behind him.

 

He’s wasted time looping, circling, and taking the long ways instead of cutting through woodland shortcuts because of this feeling, and the price he pays is his horse needing an early stop for watering and grazing. He stops at a little beck and decides to stretch his stiff joints while his horse rests, but first he pets it between the eyes and strokes patterns down its long white muzzle.

 

His horse snorts and backs away from him. He turns to see what startled it, assuming it nothing more than a fox (or some other woodland nuisance).

 

There’s a tall, dark shadow under the trees, and two arms protrude from it and stretch a bowstring taut, an arrow nocked and aimed squarely at his forehead.

 

He’s speechless. His mind is worn thin after a night of mulling over this nagging feeling, but anger stretches them even thinner, and now it’s pulsing with thoughts of how he should’ve trusted his instinct and never let his guard down. Because here he stands, at the mercy of someone else’s weapon, aimed to kill, and he could’ve avoided this.

 

Or maybe he couldn’t have, because this person- more like a shadow that peeled his own away and attached itself to him, silently, right under his nose, following him for who knows how long- seems far too advanced at hiding their tracks, camouflaging everything from their scent to their presence. They minimized themselves to leave nothing but an impression, their targets feeling like they’re being watched but finding no evidence of it until they’re ambushed. He’d be impressed if he weren’t the one being stalked.

 

“You’re about to tell me you’re a benign messenger carrying letters from one emperor to another, aren’t you? Because if so,” the voice, disembodied, stemming from a dark, faceless shadow as far as he knows, quivers and drops from a soft little whisper to a hiss, “save it for someone gullible enough to believe you.”

 

Soonyoung _is_ a benign messenger carrying letters from one emperor to another, but now he’s angry, so he forgets about defending himself in favour of being stubborn. “I didn’t say a word,” he spits, hackles raised, shoulders hunching under his dull chain-mail armor and making the little metal blades shiver and rattle. “Nor did I plan on begging for my life and kneeling under _your_ mercy.”

 

He would pull his sword out, but that would be pointless when faced with an enemy armed with arrows, let alone someone so elusive and sharp that they’d managed to stalk him, the highest-ranking soldier and the closest in his entire faction to being considered the royal consort. And he did it silent as an eagle that swoops down out of thin air and pierces its talons into a wild hare.

 

In the stillness that follows his words, he hears only his heart thumping, trying to break his ribcage and escape, it seems, and the _rrrit_ of the bowstring being pulled back tighter- to make the arrow he shoots penetrate even more deeply.

 

“So what will you do?” Comes the voice, so hushed and deflated it sends a shiver up his spine, and he fights with all his might to keep from shuddering, because his armor would clink and then his enemy would think he was afraid. “You’ll let me kill you? Or do the men up in _Goguryeo_ still believe taking their own lives when cornered?”

 

He doesn’t respond, but his eyes, once wide and alert, have narrowed. His hand has been hanging idly at his side, but now his fingers are edging up to grip the hilt of his sword. And he’ll use an old-but-gold war tactic; he’ll wait to pounce when his enemy has distracted himself sufficiently enough.

 

He can almost see the shadow tilt its head and sneer as it catches what he’s doing with his hand, and he can just _hear_ that its lip-corners have curled in triumph. “Are you going to use that pretty sword to slit your own throat, all because of _me_? Or will the pleasure and honour be mine?”

 

At the tail end of these words, he moves. He pulls his sword out and ducks, dropping down below eye-level, arm held high, ready to stave off the shower of arrows he expects to come raining down on him. His sword is strong, and he’s used it to deflect arrows and spears successfully before. To his surprise, however, this figure aims up at the sky and releases, shooting the arrow in a high arc that skims the low clouds and disappears beyond them. And then a laugh rings around the moonlit meadow.

 

He takes this chance to swing his sword and stop only when the sharp tip rests in the notch under the shadow’s throat, between his clavicles. The laugh’s knocked out of him now, but from what he can see in the darkness, he’s still grinning, which infuriates Soonyoung more than anything. “Any last words?” He asks, licking his lips and pressing closer. Soonyoung loves the anonymity of the thick battle helmet he wears, covering his entire face save for the thin slit through which he sees.

 

“No. Because I’m not dying tonight,” the shadow huffs out a crystallized breath, with which a humorless little laugh bubbles up. “Now get your filthy sword off of me.” And like that, he uses a clever disarming trick, raising an elbow and hitting it against Soonyoung’s carpals so that his fingers go weak and he drops his sword. A trick of the shadows.

 

Soonyoung scrambles to pick up his sword, but by the time he’s straightened and poised himself for a fight, the shadow is gone. Disappeared into thin air, melted back into the dark forest he came from, like he was a demon, a test from the gods. But Soonyoung thinks the warm breath he felt on his cheek and the contempt and smugness in his voice were too real to be a demon’s.

 

He walks back to his horse, and as he mounts it, he hears another laugh ringing around the meadow, but he whips his reins and spurs his horse away before he can think of it as anything more than an owl’s hunting call or a fox’s cackle.

 

 

 

Tension is high, and the threat of a war breaking out is even higher, which is exactly why Soonyoung is urgent about delivering these messages before the emperor grows impatient waiting for word from the other. Soonyoung knows he could get himself executed for doing it, but he opens the letters and reads them one night, and he wishes he hadn’t afterwards. Bile rises in his throat seeing his emperor talk with such loose, easy aggression to the other, as though intending to insult the entire kingdom of _Silla_ into another war, poking at their emperor’s pride until it bursts. He’s adding fuel to the fire, and he’s willing to sacrifice thousands of soldiers (like Soonyoung) with a wave of his hand, from the comfort of his throne room.

 

When he reaches the border, they let him through quickly, knowing how important his timing and reception are. A caravan of _Silla_ border-guard flank him in his descent down to the royal capital, which hugs the eastern coast of the peninsula bearing the feuding kingdoms. They keep watchful eyes on him, but knowing people are watching him is irritating at best, and nothing like the prickle of being hunted and stalked by… whatever that shadow was.

 

Within the high walls bordering the emperor’s palace, lush flower-gardens grow, and the air is cold and mountainous when it seeps in through the cracks and gaps in Soonyoung’s impenetrable armor.

 

He bows his head and kneels in front of the emperor, as he was instructed to do days ago. They told him not to show any sign of being from an enemy state when over the border, and to act as though their emperor is his. After minutes of crouching in silence, staring at the planks under his feet and hardly daring to look up, he’s dismissed and escorted back out, and quick as that, he’s on his way home again.

 

 

 

It’s twilight, and Soonyoung’s entering border territory, mixed _Silla_ and _Goguryeo_ guard-posts, a strip of land neutral to both sides where Soonyoung can finally let himself relax, if only slightly. Here, he won’t have to worry about being abducted or intercepted, because there are enough people from his side to notice an attack happening. This, however, is his crucial mistake, and if the trick-of-the-shadows had actually been planning on killing him instead of playing around, he could’ve easily done it tonight. Soonyoung is so oblivious to his surroundings, so invested in cleaning his sword and tightening the straps of his armor, that even the pebbles tumbling down from higher up the cliff don’t alert him.

 

He hears the hiss of a sword being unsheathed and spins, striking his across its middle. The clang echoes, and alongside the sound of the birds chirping before nightfall, it carries around them and rings in their ears.

 

Soonyoung’s sword is crossed and pressed against this warrior’s, and he drives more force into his grip, willing to push the sword out of his hands. He growls when his eyes focus on his face, once again shrouded, this time in shadows as well as gauzy cloth that covers everything but his eyes. “What do you want, warrior? Or are you a thief trying to take my horse and sword?”

 

He laughs, again, always laughing at everything Soonyoung says. None of what he’s saying is funny, and neither is the rumbling growl coming from low in his throat, stemming from rage that bubbles in his gut at being outsmarted and stalked successfully not once, but twice in a row. But still he laughs, and it’s full of mirth. It belittles him wordlessly, and it makes it obvious that he sees no threat in Soonyoung. “I could’ve stolen those nights ago, if I wanted to.”

 

“Then what are you? A _Silla_ spy?”

 

He shrugs, tilting his head from one side to the other, agonizingly slow. “Maybe. Who knows?”

 

“So you are.” Soonyoung side-steps to move himself farther from the cliff edge, all while keeping his eyes trained on the warrior and his every move.

 

“I said maybe. I don’t work under anyone. I don’t take orders.”

 

“Why did you reveal yourself to me, and tell me you’re a spy, if you’re not planning on killing me?”

 

“We only kill if absolutely necessary,” he replies. Judging by the way his under-eyes scrunch and curl, he’s smirking. “I think you’re an enemy, and I’ll do my best to irritate you, but killing isn’t my forte. And I never intended to _kill you_.” He adds the last part as though it was obvious, as though he had been friendly all along.

 

It’s Soonyoung’s turn to chuckle, but his is deadened and hollow, an icy little thing meant to solicit some kind of response from this warrior. But he doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, and his eyes, so empty and dark and unmoving, startle Soonyoung if he spends too long looking into them. It’s like staring into a demon’s eyes. “A _Hwa-rang_ coward you are, then,” he mutters stupidly, still trying to force a reaction out of him.

 

“Coward perhaps, but undefeatable as far as you’re concerned, _Goguryeo_ messenger.”

 

And with that, he frees his sword by wrenching it away from Soonyoung’s, ducking and rolling and then disappearing round the bend of the cliff-side, scaling rocks and unstable ledges with all the deftness of a fox. Soonyoung blinks, speechless and stupefied, and he’s gone, once again.

 

 

 

There’s a story that’s been passed down generationally, diluted until it became a sliver of the myth it once was. One he and his friends used to whisper about as they watched the horse-mounted soldiers streaming out of their town and towards the distant hills, aiming to spend the night hunting down their silver foxes.

 

The myth is simple- it tells of a silver fox that dwells in every copse of trees, and how the young man who hunts it down and carries its pale, glimmering pelt home will find his true love within a month. That’s all there is to it. It sounds easy and unembellished, but it’s challenging in how hard it is to pinpoint and hunt down a fox, let alone one of that colour.

 

As soon as he comes back home, Soonyoung’s planning on spending a night out, prowling sleeplessly until he chances upon his very own silver fox.

 

 

_Silver Arrow_

 

 

He strips his horse of its saddle and reins and leaves it free to roam around the plains where he’d decided to pitch camp this evening. He’s too conscious of his missing second-shadow, and of how he may reappear anytime, to dare strip himself of his armor, even though he would love to bathe in the springs by the camp and run free of its loud, stiff confines.

 

Soonyoung only knows how right his assumption is when the shadow decides to make its presence known, but never before. It’s always just a feeling in the back of his mind until his clever _Hwa-rang_ decides it’s time for Soonyoung to know. He can’t stand how easily he tricks and teases him.

 

He hears an arrow whistle, and he raises his sword and shield to deflect it, but it lands in the dirt between his two feet. The arrow-head is buried deep, and the tip is fletched with a black feather. He looks up, retracing its arc in the sky all the way back to… a figure dressed in gauzy reds and golds, lying sprawled in the boughs of an ancient magnolia across the meadow from him.

 

Upon closer look, a quiver full of arrows tipped with black crow feathers hangs from one of the higher branches, and the bow he hugs in his arms. Everything except for his eyes is covered again, rendering his features indiscernible, and even his eyes are closed. He hums a song Soonyoung doesn’t know, leisurely and relaxed. Which in itself is infuriating, because it shows how little he cares for anything Soonyoung might attempt to do in the name of either self-defense, revenge, or sheer aggression. “Really? What do you want?”

 

He doesn’t respond until he finishes humming, forcing Soonyoung to listen to his song until it ends. “My presence to be known, for once.”

 

“You’re just irritating. You’re like a second skin to a snake. And I can’t wait to shed you. Hopefully I’ll flick you off my shoulder when I cross the border.”

 

“Ah. Yes,” he opens his eyes, and they’re so dark, so impenetrably dark, like a well stretching so deep underground that sunshine has never hit the bottom. They reflect the green foliage of the forest, and they glitter with harmless malice. “You feel ill at ease and inhibited by my presence?”

 

A _whoosh,_ and Soonyoung’s little blade is thrown with a well-aimed flick of his wrist, lodging deep in the branch swinging right above his head. His eyes widen, and Soonyoung feels accomplished, victorious for once, assuming that he won this “round” of whatever game it is they’re playing. Instead he begins to wheeze and laugh, so much that he almost falls out of the tree, and Soonyoung wishes he had a second blade to throw. This time he’d aim for his neck.

 

 

 

Something moved on the rooftop. Soonyoung saw it out of the corner of his eye, a mass of darkness silhouetted starkly against the blue sky. It was a split-second occurrence, and even if it is who he thinks it might be, he can’t be bothered to give it much thought.

 

 He crouches in the brush, leaves poking his face and thorns scraping through his clothes (he’s wearing thin cloth tonight, because his battle armor is far too clunky and noisy for a hunting mission), and watches a clump of trembling bushes. It might be the breeze, but he also thought he caught something small and pale running for shelter behind them when it heard him coming. He has a spear in one hand and a sword in another, and in other words, he’s ready to tackle his silver fox in any way he can.

 

With the sound of a twig cracking, he sees a flash of silver rippling under thinner foliage. This is his chance. If he doesn’t take it now, he might end up chasing after it for the rest of the night. He creeps over, light on the soles of his feet so he makes the least noise possible, walking in the cross-winds so it can’t catch his scent on the breeze. He swings his spear up and brings it back down, but an arrow whirs right past his ear and hits the bush so all the leaves rustle and gasp, and the silver fox darts out. Despite Soonyoung’s flimsy attempt at spearing it as it runs, he misaims and watches it disappear into the copse.

 

Soonyoung thinks his patience has never been worn so thin. It’s so thin, he thinks he can feel it shred, one string at a time. It breaks as he exhales hard, hardly wanting to turn around and face his shadow. The boiling anger in his gut is incomparable to anything he’s felt before.

 

But he does turn, and there’s a tall, lanky figure on the rooftop, and Soonyoung would mistake it for a stone gargoyle if it weren’t wrapped in silks and gauzes that flutter in the breeze. A hemp belt cinches his waist, hair in a top-knot, a red band tied across the crest of his forehead. He can see the crow-feather-tipped arrows strapped to his back, and the bow, too. How’d he get over the border? And more importantly, why is he over the border purely to follow and irritate Soonyoung?

“Sorry,” he says unapologetically, “I just don’t think hunting silver foxes for an unfounded legend is very ethical.”

 

It’s those words that really push Soonyoung over the edge. He runs and jumps, scaling the low stone building and clambering up onto the roof, pebbles and shards of rock and metal digging into his calloused palms as he grips the edge and tries to haul himself up. The figure walks over, every step on the loose old roof tiles shingling, and grabs Soonyoung by the forearm, lifting him up with ease.

 

He seems unaware of Soonyoung’s anger- or he was expecting it, and he’s relishing in how predictable he is. Because as soon as he climbs up on the roof, Soonyoung twists his grip and shoves at him so hard he trips and almost tumbles off the edge, breath cutting off sharply as he finds his footing and grips onto Soonyoung’s arm to keep from falling off. “You’re going to push me off the edge? Worst I’ll get is a broken leg. Isn’t that an unsatisfying way to defeat me?”

 

“You talk too much.” Soonyoung huffs, more exasperated than he can ever remember feeling. But for all he talks, he’s right, as always. Throwing him off the edge _would_ be dissatisfying. “Define satisfying, then.”

 

He opens his mouth, and then closes it again, and Soonyoung grins. It was rhetorical, anyway, so he’s glad he has nothing to say.

 

Soonyoung continues, grip still steely on his firm, bird-boned arms, which he holds twisted behind his back, caging him in. “Handing you to the night-guard up the hill, who’ll then take you to the king, and then throw you in the prisons, if not execute you, _would_ be satisfying to me. Don’t you think?”

 

He narrows his eyes. And Soonyoung can see nothing else of him, but judging by the tone in his voice, he’s smiling. Soonyoung almost growls again. “You wouldn’t.”

 

“Oh, yeah? What’s stopping me?” He pulls him even closer, leaning further in. To intimidate him, maybe. To look into his eyes a little more clearly, perhaps.

 

He kicks his shin out and knocks it hard against Soonyoung’s. It hurts him enough to loosen his grip- he counted on this, and this is how he makes another swift escape from Soonyoung’s supposedly stone-cold clutches.

 

“You need to stop underestimating me.” And with that, he runs across the rooftop. And off the edge he leaps, Soonyoung almost expecting him to transform into a bird and take flight. He feels tricked when he doesn’t get picked up by the breeze and whisked away on it. Instead he lands on the ground, and turns to blow Soonyoung a kiss, pressing his hand to his mouth and then raising it in salute.

 

The churning, boiling rage in his gut switches to something else of a similar temperature and heart-quickening force. But he confuses it with rage and labels it as such, despite the fire flaring up along the ridges of his ears.

 

 

 

“Don’t be so quick to run away from me this time. I have a proposition,” Soonyoung’s voice rings out. He’s fairly certain he’s here, at least. He hasn’t seen him, but he knows he has company when he starts to feel like someone’s running a feather along his spine, tantalizing and slow, and when he begins to look around warily, fingers creeping down his thigh to wrap around his sheathed, hanging sword.

 

His voice carries with the breeze, its dull scratchiness almost resembling the sound of leaves swishing against each other. “What is it?”

 

“I’ll fight you. If I win, you leave me alone. If I lose, you kill me,” Soonyoung answers, confident in his own abilities, therefore forgetting how risky this is and how high it sets the stakes.

 

“And if it’s a truce?” He asks, stepping out from behind a thick, mossy tree trunk. He’d been so still and well-camouflaged that he was invisible, even though he was standing practically in front of Soonyoung. His earthy, neutral-coloured robes are submerged in the colours of the forest, as though he’d soaked them in the shades of the mulch and the branches before cloaking himself.

 

Soonyoung thinks for a minute. “If it’s a truce, we… stop attacking each other. And talk.”

 

He snorts. “ _Talk_? You want to talk? Okay, fine, whatever you want.”

 

They both line up, Soonyoung drawing his sword. “You can’t use arrows in close-range combat, you know.”

 

“You think I was born yesterday?” He pulls out a sword of his own, much shorter than Soonyoung’s, but glinting wickedly when it catches the late afternoon sunlight. “Oh, and no actual maiming. Just aim to disarm and render me defenseless.”

 

He doesn’t even catch his breath before lunging forward. Soonyoung ducks and this warrior slashes down, the sounds of their swords cutting through the air and through the forest. Soonyoung fights aggressively, more force than thought put into his parries and thrusts, and he responds by dodging all of his attacks and aiming to impale Soonyoung’s weakest points. Soonyoung would rather die than admit it aloud, but he’s the sharpest, most calculated opponent Soonyoung has ever fought.

 

He can hear his breathing pattern growing erratic, somehow amplified in the silence between the metal clanging and the birds crying. He can almost see his lips parted under the fabric, because in sunlight it becomes almost translucent. The thought of unveiling a face that’s been kept anonymous, hidden from his curious eyes, sets fire to his insides.

 

And this is where he goes wrong; impulsively, Soonyoung aims to poke his sword-point into the edge of the fabric and rip it off of his face. He grunts and catches onto what Soonyoung’s doing, and that’s where it ends.

 

The tip of his sword is pressed to the notch under Soonyoung’s throat, and Soonyoung’s sword is likewise pressed to his sternum.

 

He watches his eyes flicker down to the sword hovering over to his chest, and then back to his own pinning into Soonyoung’s neck. “…I’m sure neither of us expected this.”

 

“Lower your weapon, and I’ll lower mine.” Soonyoung’s voice is bubbling with malice, but he means the last part. He swore to lower his weapon, and with it any leftover aggression, if this ended in a truce.

 

They both lower their swords, only slightly, hands still white-knuckled around the hilts. He steps closer, and so does Soonyoung. Now they stand where their eyes are level, and they’re both regaining lost breath, and the forest panning out behind this warrior’s face is spinning a dizzying green. The only steady things are his eyes.

 

“Afraid to step any closer?” His eyes narrow to a glare that burns holes through Soonyoung, as though he sees right through his helmet and armor.

 

Because he’s stubborn and he’ll never back down, he steps forward, closer still, sealing the distance between them. He’s so close his eyes have trouble focusing. Blood rushes through his ears when this warrior leans farther in, so close that their nose-tips brush against each other.

 

In one unprecedented motion, Soonyoung grabs at the hem of the veil and rips it clean off of his head.

 

He bunches up the fabric in his hand and steps back to look at what he’s uncovered. The first thing he registers is that he’s definitely not a demon or a shadow or a trick. He’s flesh and blood, soft white skin coloured pink at the lips and cheeks, breathing hard through parted lips. His hair is ruffled, strands trembling in the wind and sticking to his sweaty jaw and cheeks, seeing as it reaches just past his ears. The other things he registers are both the snarl curling at the edge of his lip and the way he cocks his head to one side… it’s intimidating, to say the least.

 

Soonyoung drops the fabric to the ground and tilts his head down. The combination of ending their fight in a truce and uncovering his face has made it easier to let his guard down, so by lowering his head, he’s granting him easy access to his helmet- to take it off and reveal what’s behind his mask as well.

 

He does. He wraps his hands around it, gently, and pries it over Soonyoung’s head, and he throws it somewhere behind him when it’s off, where it lands in a rustle. And then they let the silence, peppered with birds and breeze and their irregular breaths, fill in the gaps as words usually would, so they can drink each other in.

 

“Like what you see?” He finally asks, running his fingers through his hair and tucking it behind his ears.

 

“Why’d you cover your face in the first place if you don’t care about me ripping it off?” Soonyoung scowls. It doesn’t feel so much like a victory when he’s standing there, basking in the sunlight and in Soonyoung’s stare.

 

“Builds suspense. Made our encounters more fun, I’d say. And it irritated you, clearly,” he adds, followed by a small laugh when Soonyoung glowers and throws his sword down to the ground. He won’t be needing it anymore. All of his desire to kill this person seeped out of his body once he unmasked him, and if he gets annoyed enough, he’ll wrestle him down and pin him so he submits under his mercy. But somehow, even the thought of pinning him down makes his stomach lurch and squeeze. He thinks it’s the leftover adrenaline making him feel that way.

 

“Why did you intercept me in the first place? So, you’re a spy from _Silla_ , and you stopped me because you didn’t know I was a messenger, but you didn’t kill me,” he frowns. If he really _is_ a spy sent to attack and intercept enemy warriors, then that makes him the worst one Soonyoung has seen. He caged Soonyoung in his trap and then let him go just as easily, which is the complete opposite of what he should’ve done (which would be killing him, or taking him captive), as well as being incredibly irritating and silly. “And now you’re following me everywhere, but why?”

 

“I don’t owe you answers to either of those questions.”

 

Soonyoung sighs. They’re treading in circles around each other, back and forth, hissing and spitting, but it never goes anywhere. Even when they put their swords against each other and square their shoulders, jaws stiff and movements calculated, it always ends the same way it started. There’s no victory and no reward in arguing or fighting with him, but somehow, that makes it all the more investing. It makes him strive towards a moment where he finally lays him out, stark and bare as a tree trunk stripped of its bark. He wants to pin him down- not _necessarily_ physically- and give him no more room to twist and evade. “Is it too much to ask for your name, then?”

 

 

_Silver Fox_

 

 

Wonwoo is a name that rolls off his tongue easily, and he likes saying it so much, he finds himself mumbling it under his breath even when he’s not around. It fits him, oddly. He sees his impenetrable eyes in his name, and he sees his name in the dappled shadows under the thickest trees’ foliage. He sees his name in the wind that picks up at sunset and ghosts over the mountains, a cold bite to it, one that gnaws at the edges of his cheeks the way Wonwoo gnaws at his patience and curiosity. And he sees it in the yellow river slithering down the hill by which he often lingers, a glittering snakeskin under the midday sun, swift and elusive and cold. He’s so cold and cruel sometimes, denying answers Soonyoung asks for, laughing at his anger, disappearing just when he catches up to him. That part of him remains a demon in the shadows, a stiff old gargoyle on an old palace’s roof-edge.

 

But even gargoyles crumble with time. Everyone and everything reverts back to dust in the end. And in this instance, Soonyoung will chip at him until he begins seeing cracks and fissures through which honesty and answers seep.

 

 

 

“Doesn’t anyone ask about you back home? How are you always over the border in enemy territory?” Soonyoung is guarding the barracks near the border overnight, a cluster of small buildings on an empty moor lined with woodland. The person he talks to is none other than Wonwoo, who he found hovering the way he always seems to, half of him drenched in darkness and the other in moonlight.

 

“None of your business,” Wonwoo replies, stepping back into the swathe of pooling shadows under the old-growth oaks, where even the moonlight can’t penetrate. “Doesn’t anyone ever see you talking to an enemy when you’re supposed to be guarding your land from none other than him and his people?”

 

“Point taken.”

 

“Can’t we lessen the hostility between us a bit, anyway?” Wonwoo adds in an undertone, tossing a pebble up from his palm and catching it while it’s still arcing in mid-air. He repeats the motion, and Soonyoung wonders if it’s supposed to be threatening or playful. Maybe it’s nothing at all, just an absent-minded habit, but he somehow finds it hard to wrap his head around the idea of Wonwoo doing things idly, harmlessly- which really only makes Wonwoo’s request seem more justified.

 

He snorts. “No. And you’re one to talk, anyway.”

 

“I’m not even doing anything right now,” Wonwoo replies, throwing the pebble so it clinks against a rock a little farther down the hill from where they stand. “What do you have against me, Soonyoung?”

 

He takes a minute to think before answering, even if rapid answers itch and burn at the tip of his tongue. “We’re supposed to be enemies. It can’t be any other way. And it’s not like you’ve done anything to endear yourself to me.” The last part may or may not be a lie; but it’s a white one, white-hot, even, because even Soonyoung doesn’t know if it’s the truth or if he’s just lying to himself.

 

“Do rules really matter so much to you, Soonyoung?” His voice is low, but it crackles and pops like a raging fire would. If Soonyoung were asked to imagine what a demon’s voice sounds like when it’s attempting to seduce and lure its captive, he wouldn’t need to think beyond the way Wonwoo sounds in this moment.

 

And Soonyoung hates it, but that fire in his voice finds its way to whatever strings his willpower and stubbornness together and sets them ablaze. He hates how easily he makes him crumble and heed.

 

“They don’t,” he finally replies, swallowing a large, dry lump in his throat. They did matter, five minutes ago, but they don’t anymore. In this moment, everything’s fickle and easy to throw over his shoulder.

 

“Now, about endearing myself to you.” He steps out of the shadows, as he does every time they rendezvous. His silken robes, looped and wrapped and ribbon-tied around his sinewy, lean frame, shimmer in the moonlight. His hair blends into the forest behind him, and his eyes are darker than ever. “Maybe I could change that if you agreed to meet me in the meadow tomorrow.”

 

“Is this a trick?” Soonyoung asks, narrowing his eyes. _But then again, when is it not?_ Wonwoo takes one long stride to seal the distance between them, casting a shadow of his own down onto Soonyoung. It shrouds, veils, and surrounds him, and it feels like Wonwoo’s way of embracing him.

 

“Meet me tomorrow and you’ll find out.”

 

Soonyoung bristles and grumbles, but he doesn’t say no, and that unspoken agreement is more than either of them would ever say aloud. It’s a step in the right direction; a step into the shadows for Soonyoung, and a step out into the open for Wonwoo.

 

Silhouetted against the weeds and shrubs next to their feet, Wonwoo’s shadow kisses Soonyoung’s cheek, because Wonwoo himself is still far too flighty and unsure to attempt it.

 

 

 

Soonyoung finds the bow and sheath of arrows leaning against a tree stump, and their bearer nowhere to be seen. So while he waits for Wonwoo to fall out of whatever tree he’s scaled, he picks them up and examines them closely, running his calloused fingertips along the carved, polished wood. It’s sturdy but pliable, and the string is triple-knotted and braided together so it doesn’t rip when pulled extensively during battle. He wonders if Wonwoo made it himself (he wouldn’t put it past him).

 

Since no one’s around, he can let his guard down. He forgets that Wonwoo could be watching from behind a bush, silent and breathless as a corpse, and he’d never know. He positions himself, legs bent at the knees, and stretches the bow, arrow clumsily nocked. But his fingers fumble and it falls out of his grip, and the string’s too taut for him to pull comfortably.

 

When he tries again, Wonwoo speaks from somewhere behind him. “You’re holding the arrow backwards. The feathers should be in your fingers, against the bowstring, and the sharp point should rest in the notch on the stave.”

 

Soonyoung lowers it and grumbles something unintelligible, a reddish shade of embarrassment colouring his cheeks.

 

“I can teach you how to use them, though,” Wonwoo offers matter-of-factly, coming right up behind Soonyoung and taking them gently from his hands.

 

He cranes his head up to look at him and, oddly enough, he’s put off by his easy half-smile. “Since when have you gotten so friendly with me?”

 

“Forget I offered, then.”

 

“No, show me how. Then maybe I can kill you next time you leave them unattended and wander around weaponless.”

 

Wonwoo slings the sheath of arrows over his shoulder, the waver in his voice betraying his thinly-veiled amusement. “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, Soonyoung. I’ve yet to teach you how to hold the bow.”

 

He stands at Soonyoung’s side and sets his hand on the small of his back to straighten him into proper posture, but Soonyoung shudders under the lightest touch. It’s a vulnerable part of his body, and having Wonwoo’s warm hand rest atop it is confusing. He doesn’t want to turn his head to peer at him, because that’d be too obvious, so he strains his eyes, trying to cast a sidelong stare that should go unnoticed. Only now does he realize how much taller and more imposing Wonwoo is up-close.

 

Wonwoo cups his hands over Soonyoung’s and guides them where they need to be, telling him how tightly he should grip the carved wood. Then he demonstrates how he should stretch his arms, and Soonyoung imitates, and Wonwoo laughs and corrects, tweaking with gentle prods and touches until Soonyoung gets it right. He’s unaware of how shocked Soonyoung is; he’s never seen this side of Wonwoo before, and he wonders what happened to make Wonwoo’s behavior around him flip inside-out, overnight.

 

“Now pull the arrow back, until the string feels like it’s resisting and it’ll snap if you pull any further,” Wonwoo instructs, stepping back to watch Soonyoung’s form. “Good. Now let go.”

 

“Really?” Soonyoung is startled, the blades of the feathers digging into his fingers. He sees Wonwoo nod, though, and he lets go.

 

It doesn’t hit any target- it falls to the ground, in fact- but the look on Wonwoo’s face, equal parts pleased and smug, is enough to make Soonyoung want to retry until he’s perfected it. Although he doesn’t know if it’s the genuine encouragement from Wonwoo that’s making him so invested in learning, or if it’s simply his stubborn desire to knock that lofty smirk off his face.

 

The rain forces the session to come to a close too early for either of their liking, though it’s one of the many things they’ll never admit. They were both acting inconsequentially warm and friendly, and the drizzle, starting light enough to ignore but soon developing into a gusty downpour, wedges something between them once again.

  
There’s a temple nearby that they shelter in, all black stone pillars and carved statues, in the crags and crevices of which moss and tiny sprouting wildflowers grow. Dried candle-wax dribbles down the stacked stones, and shells of old candles as well as tin saucers remain from pilgrims and visitors who stopped at the temple in the past. It smells musty, but there’s a sweetness stemming from the fragrant, now-rotting flowers left at the feet of the statues.

 

He stands with Wonwoo, water streaming down both of their faces and dripping from their chins to the ground, drip-drops echoing, and neither of them dare break the heavy, hushed silence blanketing them. It’s a niche and a haven and if nothing else, if not a place of worship, it at least serves as a shelter.

 

Wonwoo tries to light a small fire, and Soonyoung settles under the base of one of the statues, sweeping all the wilted, browned petals into his hands. He _could_ go home, but he doesn’t want to leave Wonwoo alone in this temple overnight. All the same, he feels angry now that the bubble’s broken and he has time to think back on how reactive he was to Wonwoo.

 

“Come warm up,” Wonwoo says, holding his hands out in front of the fire. Orange light dances across his cheeks and two little reflections of the fire sit in his black eyes.

 

“It’s not even cold.”

 

“But we got wet.”

 

“Why are you so friendly all of a sudden?” Soonyoung asks, crossing his arms. He’s angry at himself, but he’s bad at managing his own emotions so he redirects them at his only target, who, being the cause of the emotions, also happens to be the easiest to blame.

 

“I could ask you the same question,” Wonwoo points out, staring at him. Soonyoung doesn’t know how to interpret this.

 

He moves closer to the fire but he doesn’t sit down. The petals are still cupped in his hands, and he releases them over Wonwoo’s head. Silly and childish. Wonwoo flinches, eyes shut, and flicks them off of his shoulders. “Is that it? Are you done?” He looks up at Soonyoung, one eye still closed, and Soonyoung can see that he’s fighting back laughter.

 

“ _Yes_.” Soonyoung sits down now, adjacent to Wonwoo. He can’t even be angry at him for too long, because now that he’s looking at him, he wants to pick the petals out of his shaggy hair and apologize for throwing them on him in the first place. Why is he cycling through moods so violently, all because of _him_? When has anyone ever held this much power over him, from his head to his toes, his mind to his soul? When has he ever shuddered under anyone’s touch or had his blood pulse white-hot at a single offhand comment thrown in his direction?

 

Wonwoo pulls a scroll of mulberry-bark paper from his robes and begins to read it, humming absently under his breath as he does. It’s low and hushed, but it fills the tavern and oozes its way into every dark corner, flowing over the gusts and echoes.

 

“What are you reading?”

 

“Poetry.”

 

“You carry poetry scrolls with you?” Soonyoung asks, only slightly bewildered. He’s never met a warrior who prioritizes carrying leisurely items like scrolls of poetry over other, more logical things to bring on journeys. In his experience, packing for travel is always weaponry, spare weaponry, and food. He supposes this is a _Hwa-rang_ thing.

 

Wonwoo doesn’t respond, going back to humming his little wordless song and reading off of the ink-stained brown paper in his hands.

 

“I’m sorry for throwing the petals at you.”

 

Wonwoo doesn’t look up, but he has his index finger caught between his lips, the corners of which twist upwards. “See? You _love_ me, Kwon Soonyoung,” he whispers, barely audible, eyes still on the poem.

 

“I do not.” Soonyoung turns away from him, turning his back to the fire, and tucks his face into his folded arms, burrowing as deeply as he can to avoid seeing that smug smile again.

 

 

Grunts and gasps, slashes and clicks, and the ringing sound of metal slicing against metal all sound from the sunny patch of meadow they often meet in. A dizzying flurry of arms and swords halts to reveal Soonyoung and Wonwoo, a sheen of sweat beading the former’s forehead and the latter’s neck. Soonyoung had proposed they spar again; he’s trying his hardest to stem the feelings he’s having for Wonwoo, and while he can’t bring himself to refuse when Wonwoo inevitably asks him to meet again, he can try his best to distance himself. And when they fight, they do grow more distant, more aggressive, sometimes even bickering- but it’s silly to think that this alone can erase the rest of what’s quickly developing.

 

Wonwoo’s exhausted and it shows, because he’s letting Soonyoung batter him and push him into surrendering much more easily than usual. He said he didn’t sleep well, but that doesn’t make Soonyoung any more relenting. His final blow is one Wonwoo barely dodges, and Soonyoung starts to berate him on how easy it would’ve been for him to chop Wonwoo’s head off if he’d wanted to, but Wonwoo’s clutching at a stitch in his chest and stumbling backwards, visibly worn-out.

 

He furrows his eyebrows and catches him around the forearm, steadying him and peering in to look at his face. “Are you- Wonwoo, what’s wrong with you?”

 

Wonwoo is breathing hard, but when he looks up, his smile is unwavering and bright. Mischievous, even. “You love me, don’t you? I worried you, Soonyoung, didn’t I?”

 

Soonyoung gingerly lets go of Wonwoo’s arm and scowls. “I do not.”

 

The next thing he knows, Wonwoo’s hand is on his shoulder, and the other is tilting his chin up. He presses a little closer, and the wind is knocked out of Soonyoung in the same way it would’ve been if someone had slammed the hilt of a sword into his sternum. “Not one bit?”

 

Soonyoung shakes his head adamantly, but inside, he’s frantically picking up the shards of his composure, which Wonwoo knocked down and shattered, to save face, to keep him from knowing how he really feels. He’s used to having a mask to hide his expressions behind; he feels so bare and pinned-down like this, the nervous flicker in his eye so easy to read.

 

Wonwoo cups Soonyoung’s soft cheek in his rough, calloused palm. Soonyoung steps backwards, to evade, but having no place to go, backs into a tree. “Are you sure about that?”

 

He brings his lips so they ghost over Soonyoung’s, and he shudders out a sweet breath that tickles his upper lip. “May I?”

 

“Not now,” Soonyoung answers, too quickly even for his own mind to comprehend. Soonyoung is ready to kiss and be kissed, but he’s not ready to come face-to-face with the realization and admittance that kissing Wonwoo would entail. He regrets it, but now that he’s said it, he’s made up his mind. He can’t swallow the words if he’s already spat them out. “I’ll let you know when I am.”

 

 

 

It happens when they get caught in the rain again. Clouds had gathered, but Wonwoo had wrongly predicted that they’d glide over their side of the mountain and rain on the northern range. He didn’t care; he seemed to enjoy getting caught in dreary weather, and he even smiled and laughed when his clothes and hair were sopping wet. Another make-light-of-the-negatives _Hwa-rang_ teaching Soonyoung just couldn’t wrap his head around (no matter how many times Wonwoo explained it).

 

Of course a shadow would prefer to avoid sunlight. If Soonyoung hadn’t just seen him basking in it, he wouldn’t hesitate to believe that Wonwoo evaporated and disappeared when exposed to it.

 

So he sat and whittled at a branch of wood while Soonyoung complained about how the clouds were going to crack open and pour on them until they finally did, and Wonwoo simply gathered his robes around himself even when a drizzle began to fall.

 

Soonyoung just wants Wonwoo to move, because looking at him sitting there, rain soaking him to the bone, is exasperating him. So he decides to trick Wonwoo. He shushes him and perk his ears for a noise he’s only pretending he heard. “I think something’s in the forest behind me.”

 

“Something? Like what?” Wonwoo asks, still unbothered and unmoving. He’s a stone gargoyle, and Soonyoung’s in the midst of crumbling him to rubble.

 

“Someone’s coming,” he says decisively, but if Wonwoo hadn’t been so startled by the very concept of one of the _Goguryeo_ rangers chancing across him in this forest, he’d have noticed the slyness in Soonyoung’s eye and seen through the trick. “I think they’re from the guard-post. They probably heard us making noise.”

 

Wonwoo’s face drains of colour, as though the wet, grey weather had blanched his skin of its pinks and reds.  “I should go, then.” He gets up and ducks away under the trees, fully believing Soonyoung’s words. This undoubting trust pushes Soonyoung’s endearment over the edge, to a point of no return, where he’s beyond saving and willing even to kiss Wonwoo now and deal with the consequences whenever they crop up.

 

He follows him, struggling to find his elusive shadow as it dodges behind trees and prowls along the sidelines, blending into the foliage and the mist. Soonyoung breaks into a run, feet sloshing and splashing in puddles of cold rainwater.

 

When he catches up to him, he tries to pull him back, and Wonwoo shakes him off. “Soonyoung, I need to go or they’ll find me here.”

 

Soonyoung feels the purest joy pulse through his body. Finally, after months of Wonwoo tricking him and melding into and out of the shadows when Soonyoung least expects it, Soonyoung can have a trick of his own. Finally, he manages to turn the tables and have it his way. Finally, he gets to watch a resplendent range of emotions flit across Wonwoo’s face. “I made that up, Wonwoo. No one was coming.”

 

Wonwoo faces him fully now, tilting his head to one side. If he had stopped to listen and look, instead of taking Soonyoung’s words, he’d have seen that the place was empty to the point of seeming abandoned. Even the birds had ceased singing because of the rain. They were undisturbed here, and Soonyoung’s reliance on Wonwoo to panic is what kept his ploy afloat.

 

“I hate you.”

 

“No, Jeon Wonwoo, you _love_ me,” Soonyoung answers, eyes and lips curled. He’s never felt so much heat coursing through his veins, not in battle and not in the thrill of winning or losing, and he’s never felt his heart swell so much that it feels like his ribs are about to crack from the expanding pressure. He cups Wonwoo between his soaking-wet hands, smoothing his hair away from his face. “I’m ready now.”

 

When Wonwoo smiles, it’s full and gentle. For once, those endless black eyes seem translucent and clear to Soonyoung. They glimmer, and he can see the excessive, embarrassing joy harbored within them. He’s so overly pleased by Soonyoung’s readiness to be kissed.

 

“I can’t kiss you if you keep smiling so widely,” he grumbles, just trying to find something to pick at. It has an adverse reaction, though, because Wonwoo begins to laugh. Soonyoung thumbs at his under-eye, and Wonwoo and his shadow lean in, both unwaveringly brave this time. Soonyoung cuts the distance between them by standing up on his toes to meet Wonwoo halfway.

 

It’s like Wonwoo’s lips are a sliver of flaring sunshine in this grey forest. He feels the warmth of Wonwoo’s smile seeping into his own lips, a trickle of hot gold parting them and slipping within him, and he doesn’t want it to stop.

 

 

 

Things change after that. For one, their meetings consist of far less fighting and far more closeness than either of them would ever have admitted to wanting. But now they’re here, and neither of them can bring themselves to even pretend they don’t like it as much as they so clearly do.

 

Somehow, every time they meet, things reset between them. The ice rebuilds and they start off hostile, winding their way down to something far more intimate just as the river winds down the hill and the sun winds down the sky. And this time, Soonyoung’s worried; for no reason at all, really, but because they kissed last night and he doesn’t know if things still reset or if things have changed between them.

 

But then he feels one acorn pelt his back, and another succeeds it when he doesn’t respond, and it means nothing’s changed at all, except that they’ll probably kiss each other goodbye tonight. “I’ll drag you out of your tree if you don’t come out now, Wonwoo,” he shouts, keeping his back turned.

 

Within a few seconds, he hears footsteps, and then a pause, and then he feels Wonwoo behind him. He looks down and sees his shadow cast sideways on the grass, haloing and overtaking his own. He supposes that’s true to what they’ve become now.

 

“I did see another soldier before you came,” Wonwoo says, cutting right through greetings and niceties. Soonyoung had hoped for a kiss, and in hindsight, he can’t believe how desensitized he’s become to thoughts like that and allowing himself to have them. What ever happened to despising Wonwoo?

 

“If you think another might scope out this area, we can hide in a tree.”

 

He declines Wonwoo’s hand when he follows him up a tree. Once they’re up, Wonwoo nestles himself so he’s comfortably caught between a fork in the branches before pulling Soonyoung down with him. He gasps when he thumps down onto him, and Wonwoo’s hands snake around him, one wrapping over his back and the other gripping at the hair on the back of his head.

 

Lying against his chest allows Soonyoung to hear hollow, pitter-pattering heartbeats under his ear, and when he closes his eyes to focus on the sound, time stops. He feels a breeze on his cheek and hears the rustle of leaves, resonant and booming because it stems from both the forest around him and the forest caged within Wonwoo’s chest. His spirit is wild and green, and he dwells eternally here, in everything from the tiny dappled shadows that shiver in the wind to the whole swaths of hillside bathed in the darkness of a cloud eclipsing the sun.

 

“You’ve still never told me where you’re from and why you’re always here,” he ventures, playing with the fabrics wrapped over Wonwoo’s chest.

 

“Well, what do you want to know?”

 

Soonyoung looks up at him, pressing his chin down into Wonwoo’s sternum. “Who you are.”

 

Wonwoo thinks for a good while before answering. When he speaks, the sound springs from deep in his chest, its vibrations making it tremble under Soonyoung’s head. “What if I tell you I’m everything and nothing and nobody all the same?”

 

“That’s a riddle, not an answer.”

 

“Then how about I kiss you instead, since I don’t have a clearer answer to give?”

 

“I won’t complain if you do.” Wonwoo stirs beneath him, intending to rise up and kiss him, but then they both freeze like startled deer when they hear the crunching of footsteps on the forest floor. A hush falls over them, and slowly, so as not to make any attention-attracting motions, Wonwoo fingers an arrow out of his quiver and sets it, ready to aim and release whenever his target comes into view.

 

Two thoughts stream through Soonyoung’s mind; the first being how quick Wonwoo was to nock an arrow to defend him from whatever this may be, and the second wondering what they would do if someone ever found them like this. Could Wonwoo get away fast enough? If not, would he and Soonyoung both be executed for treachery and trespassing?

 

“Don’t shoot him,” Soonyoung whispers, reaching up and setting his hand gently atop Wonwoo’s, loosening his fingers from their grip around the bowstring and the arrow. It’s because a soldier, indeed one of the soldiers appointed at the guard-posts just as Soonyoung is, has come into clear view, standing in the meadow they so often meet in. Soonyoung’s glad neither of them left any traces of their presence down there today.

 

“ _Sssh_ , trust me,” Wonwoo whispers back, brushing his hand off. Then he moves the bow’s aim by an inch or so, and shoots. The force with which he launches his arrows is always impressive; they whistle and whir and spin as they soar, and they usually pierce their target with such force that extracting the arrow is sometimes impossible.

 

The arrow rips through the trees and hits the trunk of one just beyond their line of sight, but the sound is enough to catch the soldier’s attention. It’s the perfect distraction, perfect for covering their tracks and leading him in the wrong direction. He runs off to find the source of the sound, metal armor clattering, and Soonyoung and Wonwoo are left alone once again, but this time on much higher alert.

 

 

 

Sometimes, they’re tender as lovers who fell in love at first sight- sometimes, when Wonwoo kisses Soonyoung’s head, or when he reties the laces of his boots for him, or when he picks dead leaves out of his hair. But most of the time, they push and pull, shove and pin, lick and bite, like the enemies they’re supposed to be.

 

Wonwoo’s bow and Soonyoung’s sword have both been discarded beside them, the sword-tip splattered with a bit of Wonwoo’s blood. Such is how their game ended; Soonyoung pressed it a little too hard against his clavicles and ended up etching a red line in his supple skin. Wonwoo had shuddered and sighed and hardly even tried to stem the bleeding with his fingers, choosing instead to knock the sword aside and grab Soonyoung’s face and kiss it.

 

Now they sit, Wonwoo light on Soonyoung’s strong lap, teeth toying with his lower lip. “I’m really tired today, Soonyoung, remember that.” It means they can’t do everything. They can kiss until their lips feel numb and raw and hot. They can lie in each other’s arms until the sun rises and they separate in opposite directions, Soonyoung turning to watch Wonwoo retreat, until even his shadow is swallowed by the early morning fog. But no more than that.

 

“So am I. Yesterday evening,” Soonyoung pauses to take a breath and sink into Wonwoo’s warm lips once more, finishing his sentence only when he’s satisfied with breaking off the kiss, “I was at the emperor’s palace, and I was elevated from knight to general.”

 

“Oh?” Wonwoo shifts in his lap, pressing down a little harder, wrapping his legs around him a little more tightly, in a way that demands his attention. “Congratulations.” His voice is deflated and almost snide, but Soonyoung can’t blame him for it. There’s nothing more polite to say to your enemy when they tell you something like this, and besides that, even Soonyoung’s excitement has worn off considerably. He, whose lifelong dream has been to become a high-ranking officer, spent sleepless hours mulling over how little desire he has to serve the emperor of _Goguryeo_ anymore.

 

Soonyoung mutters something that gets carried away in the wind. He arches his back and cuts himself off with a gasp instead when Wonwoo presses down onto him again. Wonwoo runs his hands along his chest and then stretches down to his waist, and then, below his bellybutton. He tucks his fingers in under the gaps in his wrapped shirt. “I thought you said you were tired,” Soonyoung reminds him dryly.

 

Wonwoo is focused on undoing the silky knotted ribbons that bar him from reaching Soonyoung. The sliver of blood has darkened and dried to his collarbones, Soonyoung can now see, and it only makes Wonwoo look all the more attractive to him.

 

He reaches down to help him, but Wonwoo slaps his hand away and continues working on them with his bony fingers. Soonyoung’s always been rather fixated on how delicately he tightens his bowstring and how gracefully he runs his fingers through the feathered tips, and now, how they fiddle and twist to undo the knots. “I know what I’m getting myself into, Soonyoung.”

 

“And I’m not complain-“ he inhales sharply and hisses. Wonwoo has undone every last knot, and now he’s in the process of undoing the one coiled within Soonyoung. “ _Wonwoo!”_

 

 

It glints silver in the sun and doesn’t hang too heavy when he clutches the chain in his palm and lets the jade pendant hang. It’s ideal for tucking under robes to hide from prying eyes- or, well, any eyes other than Soonyoung’s. No one else should be seeing it besides him. It’s a gift, one that’ll hang close to his heart.

 

He scoops it out of the air and folds his hand over it, bringing it to the table behind which the old woman who owns this market stall sits. He sets it down and nods at her, unhooking his coin bag from the belt looped around his waist and beginning to rummage through it.

 

“Oh, this one’s not cheap,” she says, picking it up to examine the viridian pendant in the sun, just as Soonyoung had been doing a minute before.

 

“I’m sure I can afford it,” he replies, curt but not impolite.

 

She puts it back on the table and watches him count out the _mun_ as he stacks them on the tabletop, pulled one by one out of his bag. When he looks up to make sure he’s given her all he owes her, he catches the glint in her eye. “Aren’t you one of the boys who went out bounty-hunting last month? Looking for your silver fox?”

 

Soonyoung feels uncomfortable because he knows what kind of subject this is about to turn to, sticky and intrusive as it is, but he nods nonetheless.

 

“So it’s for a very lucky woman,” she says, winking at him and pocketing the stack of _mun._

_It’s actually for an enemy, and a very boyish one at that,_ Soonyoung wants to say, but he can’t and he wouldn’t even if he could. Word travels fast around here, and he’d rather dispel rumours of him falling for one of the generals’ daughters than explain the inexplicable, which is being in love with someone who, until recently, greeted him with an arrow nocked and aimed at his temple.

 

He ends up shaking his head and smiling softly. “But I returned empty-handed that night. I didn’t catch any silver foxes.”

 

Rather, on that night, his silver fox had caught him.

 

 

_Silver Heart_

 

He sits in Soonyoung’s lap, curled docile and compact, burrowed into Soonyoung, who’s running the pads of his fingers along the bony spine that protrudes even from under Wonwoo’s robes. For all he is tall and intimidating in daylight, he melts and shrinks and shapeshifts when night falls, coldness replaced by a kind of warmth Soonyoung can’t get enough of. It’s a trap, perhaps, but if it means he gets to kiss and touch Wonwoo, he thinks he doesn’t mind walking blindly into it.

 

His nimble, pick-pocket fingers close around the necklace and pull it out of Soonyoung’s pocket while he’s too focused on what Wonwoo is whispering into his ear between kisses. “What’s this?” He asks, lifting the necklace and grinning. “It’s pretty.”

 

Soonyoung sighs. There are only so many little victories he can have over someone like Wonwoo, and keeping gifts a secret until an opportune moment presents itself is not one of them. “It’s yours,” he says, folding Wonwoo’s fingers over the coiled metal and pendant.

 

“Mine,” he echoes, surprising Soonyoung with force with which he pushes into him to hug and kiss at once. They have their very own, very strange ways of expressing things to each other, because they can kiss (among other things), but they cannot thank each other, as that would be crossing some sort of boundary.

 

“ _Wonwoo,”_ Soonyoung complains into his lips, slurring his name, shying away but only because he likes it when Wonwoo presses forward and chases his lips until he catches them again. He likes it because then he can pull him closer to bury his hands in his soft, curly hair and know he’s just as wanted and desired as Wonwoo is.

 

“Put it on me, Soonyoung.” He begins unfastening the ties pulling his tunic tight around him, and when they’re undone, he turns so his back is to Soonyoung.

 

Soonyoung pulls at the fabric so it slides down his shoulders and clusters at his elbows. He sits bathed in blue light, pointed edges of his shoulders glowing white as winter’s first snow. Soonyoung can see every crevice and taut, sloping muscle in his back, all the lines etched into it, all the tiny scars that glow a little paler than his unmarred skin.

 

He unclasps the necklace and reaches over Wonwoo’s head, setting it gently against his chest and clasping it at the nape of his neck. He feels Wonwoo shudder under his fingers, perhaps from the breeze that picked up, or maybe from the cold metal that hasn’t yet been warmed by his skin. “There.”

 

Wonwoo turns to Soonyoung, pulling his tunic back up but leaving it open enough that the sliver of his chest where the necklace sits can be seen. Silver glints between his nipped-and-bruised collarbones and he grins crookedly at Soonyoung. All a demon needs to gain control over their captive is an item their captive gives them.

 

 

 

“Did you hear about the war looming over us?” Wonwoo’s voice comes first, his body materializing afterwards. Soonyoung thinks he’s adjusted to this, or at least enough to expect any tricks Wonwoo may pull, but this still surprises him and he drops the leather canteen he’d been filling at the mouth of a mountain spring.

 

“Sorry, did I startle you?” Wonwoo asks, only the slightest bite in his words. He bends down to fish it out of the shallow pool and press it back into Soonyoung’s hands.

 

“No, it just slipped out of my hands,” Soonyoung retorts, pointlessly stubborn. He double-ties the canteen rim and returns it to his belt. “And yes, I’ve heard, what do you think I’m in _Silla_ for?”

 

“So you’re delivering a letter to the emperor again?”

 

“It’s in my bag,” he says, jerking his head back to the saddlebag hanging from his horse’s side. “You can read it, if you want.”

 

Wonwoo raises an eyebrow. “You know I could turn you in and get you executed for breaking the royal seal and reading the emperor’s letters?”

 

“But would you?” He smiles when Wonwoo shrugs. “I thought so.”

 

He wanders over to Soonyoung’s horse, seemingly unaware of Soonyoung’s eyes following him from his perch on the riverbed. He rummages through the saddlebag like it’s his own, and smooths the letter when he unfolds it. Soonyoung catches all the minute details in his face, the way his expressions lift, shape, and shift just as he does in the shadows- and when he turns the letter over to make sure he’s finished it and there isn’t more written on the back, his expression is about as dark and cold as they are, too.

 

They only talk again when the sky is leached of all lightness but not yet pitch-black. Soonyoung is sitting with his back to Wonwoo, using a tiny knife to whittle at a twig. He can feel Wonwoo looming behind him, even if he cannot see or hear him. “Are you going to fight?”

 

“I don’t know,” Soonyoung whispers back.

 

“Can you promise me that you won’t?”

 

Soonyoung sets the knife and the twig down and rises up, dusting off his clothes. Then he turns and looks Wonwoo in the eye, intending to shake his head and tell him it’s a promise he can’t keep, not in _Goguryeo_ where service is mandatory and runaways get executed. But something in him stutters and crumbles when he sees Wonwoo’s eyes, devoid of anything but a decided sort of sadness. So he takes three steps in his direction, enveloping and eclipsing him in his arms.

 

“…I’ll try not to.” Soonyoung thinks lying through his teeth and into Wonwoo’s ear feels worse than a sword buried hilt-deep in his ribs.

 

 

 

It takes a longer time than Soonyoung ever remembers it taking for Wonwoo to reappear by his side. It’s been days since he’s seen him, and for days, his last words to him- an empty half-promise- bounce around in his head.

 

“So you are going to fight,” are the words Wonwoo chooses to break the silence with.

 

“It’s not by choice, and you know that,” Soonyoung replies, the faint joy he feels upon seeing Wonwoo again stifled by the argument he knows is brewing, and has been stewing for days.

 

“But it is. If you valued your life, you’d find a loophole. Why kill yourself for such a silly cause? For an emperor you don’t even feel loyalty towards?”

 

“If I valued my life,” Soonyoung repeats idly, gathering his thoughts. “It’s not about that, Wonwoo. If I even try to resign now, they’ll execute me and replace me with someone else. They’re remorseless.”

 

“Why can’t you just leave, then?”

 

“Are you suggesting I run away and never see my family again? You want me to sit and watch your warriors slaughter and imprison them while I hide like a coward in the woods?” Soonyoung sucks in a deep breath, filling his lungs so sharply that they ache. “I don’t _want_ to fight, but I don’t have a _choice_.”

 

“Soonyoung, you can say that with ease now,” Wonwoo steps closer, “but I want to hear those same words when you’re in the battlefield and you realize how hollow you feel when there’s blood on your hands. You’ll find that you have a choice then.”

 

Soonyoung doesn’t know where Wonwoo plucked this idea that he’s never killed anyone from, but he opens his mouth to respond and shuts it again, gritting his teeth. Because it’s true, but he doesn’t know how Wonwoo sees that his heart is light and guiltless. And Wonwoo speaks so confidently of what killing feels like, so Soonyoung can’t help but wonder if he’s spilled anyone’s blood before. He doesn’t really want to know.

 

It’s only now that he recognizes how little Wonwoo knows about him, and how much less than that he knows about Wonwoo.

 

“I don’t have a choice, why won’t you understand that? Wonwoo, I’m as scared as you are, but this isn’t something I can back out of.”

 

“But you do-“

 

“Why do you care this much?” Soonyoung interrupts, pacing back and forth, kicking rocks and stepping down on sprouting flowers, crushing them under his boots.

 

“Because I care about _you_!” Wonwoo nearly shouts, and it’s the first time Soonyoung’s heard him sound so heated. “I don’t want you to die. Is your life such a strange thing to ask for?”

 

Something about the way he strings those last words together unsettles Soonyoung. He might be a demon, but he isn’t after his soul. He’s after his beating heart and his fluttering eyelids. Soonyoung looks him in the eye, and upon seeing the fire flickering within them, drops his gaze to the ground.

 

“What will happen,” _between us,_ he wants to say, but he bites his tongue so hard his teeth cut into it, and the words hang in the air despite being unsaid, “if I choose to fight anyway?”

 

“If you choose to fight, we can be rid of  _this_ ,” Wonwoo snarls, gesturing between both of them, “and we can go back to being the enemies we were always supposed to be.” He crosses his arms and turns his back to Soonyoung. His words are final, and frigid air, colder than Soonyoung ever remembers it feeling in late spring, billows through the space between them.

 

 

 

Many weeks pass in which Soonyoung and Wonwoo refuse to so much as step near any of their usual rendezvousing points. Time winds down, and everything’s closing in on Soonyoung and crushing him from all sides- for one thing, Wonwoo’s words still swirl in his mind. For another, his mother’s uncontrollable crying every time she’s seen him since word spread of the war. And for a third, the day he departs for the battlefield sits around the corner.

 

In front of the village children and his soldiers alike, he seems like a valiant, confident general. Only in his sleeping quarters, late at night, and in Wonwoo’s arms (which he can no longer hide in), can he take off the mask and let his emotions seep, down his cheeks and through his lips.

 

The night before he leaves, however, is one he knows will be sleepless. So he sweeps through his room one last time, careful so the wood panels don’t creak under him, and then he slips through the sliding door and down three steps into the grass. He’s barefoot, but if he’s going to die, or at the very least spend the coming months in tightly-laced shoes, he’d rather feel the grass and the dirt crumble under him as he walks tonight.

 

He lets his body carry him in whichever direction, caring less about the destination and more about going far away from the room he just stepped out of. It feels suffocating and sad. If this is to be his last night as a boy, he may as well spend it as he pleases- under clear, starry skies.

 

Despite his scattered thoughts, he still winds up in the same place he usually comes to meet Wonwoo in. The clearing cutting through the shadowy copse. It’s deathly quiet tonight, but when he holds his breath, he thinks he can hear something- some _one_ \- else’s.

 

“Wonwoo?” Soonyoung calls out tentatively, squinting into the darkness spanning out before him.

 

“I thought I’d find you here,” Wonwoo’s reply comes immediately, and as always, his body appears only after his voice floods through the meadow. Soonyoung lets himself drown in it, closing his eyes and tilting his head back to drink it up, because he’s not sure if they’ll ever be able to meet like this again. Soon enough, he’ll even come to miss being tricked and disarmed.

 

Wonwoo presses against him from behind, sliding one of his hands under Soonyoung’s arm to settle around his waist. Soonyoung holds his hand and stands there, feeling Wonwoo’s heartbeat pulsing against his shoulder. “Did you come to dissuade me again?”

 

“No. I came to see you while I still can.”

 

“Wonwoo, it’s not like _all_ the soldiers die. And I am a general,” he squeezes Wonwoo’s hand and turns his head, cracking open one eye to look at Wonwoo’s stiff countenance. “I’m confident I’ll see you again on the other side of this.”

 

“And I’m confident I’ll see you before then,” Wonwoo replies, ominous and quiet, pursing his lips and refusing to elaborate. Soonyoung knows he’s deep in thought- his eyes are faraway again- and he knows now that they’re not thoughts he wants to share with him. So he lets the silence settle until Wonwoo chooses to break it- which, oddly enough, he doesn’t.

 

Somewhere between the silence and the shadows, however, they end up in each other’s arms. Wonwoo’s grip on Soonyoung is almost uncomfortably tight, but he knows he means no harm in holding him so. In fact, Soonyoung holds him just as warmly, pressing Wonwoo snug against him. Goodbyes are supposed to be sad, but neither of them cry.

 

What they do is melt into each other, Wonwoo bearing Soonyoung in his arms as he bends down to plant kisses everywhere he can. Throughout it all, his fingers remain entwined in Soonyoung’s, squeezing his hand every once in a while. For reassurance, perhaps. His lips don’t warm tonight, no matter how hard Soonyoung kisses them- every time he presses them to his forehead, they leave a cold imprint on his skin.

 

The sun breaks over the eastern mountains, its light weak and white. As the darkness begins to lift from the clearing around them, Wonwoo unclasps the necklace, and when Soonyoung protests and asks why, he reaches around Soonyoung and seals the loop around his neck. “It’ll find its way back to me, because you said we’d find each other on the other side,” Wonwoo breathes out, his smile weak as the sunlight. “So keep it for the time being. Prove me wrong by bringing it back to me.”

 

It feels like one of his tricks, one of his tests, but where the others were lighthearted and playful, this one leaves Soonyoung pensive and worried, the necklace hanging heavy on his chest.

 

He lets go of Soonyoung’s hand and begins to fasten his shirt over the glittering green pendant. Then he fixes his own clothes and rises up to leave, walking away without turning back. Soonyoung watches his figure until it disappears behind the trees. It’s unceremonious, but neither of them would really have it any other way- they don’t want dramatics and drawn-out goodbyes, and they’ve made that clear to each other.

 

And now, at the end of their night together, Soonyoung feels immersed in his darkness, wrapped in his feather-light touch, and conjoined to his shadow.

 

 

 

Soonyoung’s armor shimmers and rattles more than the other soldiers’, and his helmet is etched and engraved with designs that theirs lack. They gaze at him through the slits in their helmets, some revering, some reliant, some pensive and doubtful. He paces along the front-line, prodding soldiers whose posture isn’t to his standards, shouting words of encouragement that dissolve into the air, because murmurs and tremors of fear (fear of the unknown, and of the army they face) overpower even the most commanding voices. He and the other generals keep glancing nervously at the valley below them, waiting for a sign- or even the distant thrum of horse hooves and war-cries- so they can ready their weapons and advance.

 

They rise and flood through when they finally appear, one wave of soldiers at a time, some horse-mounted and some on foot. His soldiers separate into throngs despite his attempts at gathering them in rows, feeding into the _Silla_ warriors’ separate-and-conquer tactic.

 

Soonyoung is glad for his helmet when he turns to see nearly all of his soldiers fighting to their last breaths, shields dented, redness seeping through gaps in their armor. Many of them have already fallen, some stiff and some limp in the grass, some groaning and crying, blood bubbling from their mouths.

 

His vision swims and he sways and stumbles, catching himself just before he trips over a dropped, blood-splattered sword. Every one of these soldiers died at his hands, because he led them into the battlefield and it’s entirely his fault if they were overtaken and outnumbered. Every one of them has parents just like Soonyoung does, and siblings and lovers alike.

 

When he thinks of the letters their parents will receive in the coming days, informing them of their sons’ passing away at war, under _General Kwon Soonyoung_ ’s leadership, he feels so sick that he can barely swallow back the bile rising and burning in the back of his throat. His body trembles and breaks into a cold sweat, and he fights to keep himself from swaying, to keep himself alert. Because these were all split-second thoughts, and there are still more _Silla_ warriors advancing to finish off whatever’s left of his soldiers.

 

 _Hands_. He doesn’t notice how his tremble, how he relies on his grip on his sword for support, and how the grip is slick with the wetness of his own blood, flowing from numb cuts. Soonyoung hardly registers any of his pain and soreness, in fact, fighting back the faintness that almost overtakes him every time he lets his mind (or eyes) stray. He breathes hard, keeping his head upright and his vision from blurring as a result of the adrenaline coursing through his body, so much that he doesn’t notice a hand catching him by the small of his back and pushing him upright before he topples. It gives him just enough strength to stave off an oncoming arrow. He doesn’t turn to see who helped him- doing that could get his head sliced clean off his shoulders in battle- but he almost feels like it was a hallucination. Hardly any of his soldiers are still conscious- _let alone alive_ , he thinks, choking on air- and no enemy would extend a hand if not to thrust a weapon.

 

 

Soonyoung lights a small fire to keep himself warm that night. He’s not actually sure if it was a defeat or a victory for their side of the battle, but it doesn’t matter either way- soldiers died under his leadership, and that’s not something he can stomach, even if it paved way for victory. _But brave martyrs and sacrifices contribute to every victory,_ one of the other generals had told him earlier. How is it a victory when thousands’ deaths are discounted like that? Not to mention how many _Silla_ men had doubtlessly died earlier in battle. He knows he’d never be able to express his discomfort when it comes to even enemies dying aloud, but none of it is right. Killing to avoid being killed? Letting someone die as a human shield, to protect those cowering behind him? Soonyoung tosses a log into the coals and watches it splutter and catch.

 

And then there was the split-second helping hand that pushed him upright at the most crucial moment. He closes his eyes and wills himself to think of anything other than the startling familiarity in that gesture… he can’t afford to sit here drawing comparisons that make his heart ache (in a different way than it does for the fallen) and surmising pointlessly. The fire continues to cast artificial warmth and redness across his face, but underneath that, the very thought has drained his face of colour.

 

 

This time, Soonyoung closes his eyes to his surroundings when he fights. Ignoring the smell of death and fresh-spilled blood permeating the air is just as much a part of the problem as war in the first place is, but he can’t pick up and leave, can he? (He’s beginning to think he can. He won’t be able to live with himself, his conscience and his soul already so heavy on his body, if he doesn’t at least stop _his_ contribution to this carnage.)

 

He mostly defends himself and disarms his attackers, his blows never strong enough to be fatal, the injuries he inflicts light enough to shock but not maim. He hears the jingle of metal armor behind him, and he spins, sword clattering against the other warrior’s, but his hand is strong and swift and he pushes back, so that Soonyoung’s sword and his are crossed evenly. Soonyoung peers at him, through the swords drawn between their faces.

 

He searches deep in his mask, trying to find his eyes. The warrior, giving the impression that he knows exactly what Soonyoung is looking for, tilts his head to give him more to see. Truthfully, Soonyoung expects to find a stranger, an enemy, and technically, this warrior is one. But his eyes are sharp and soft, cold and hot, far-away and close-by, all at once and in a way he recognizes. They’re eyes that he’s seen free of the shadows they’re, once again, trapped within.

 

Soonyoung is silent for so long that Wonwoo ends up talking first. “I told you we’d see each other soon,” he whispers.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

“Because you don’t stand a chance, Soonyoung. I saw you yesterday, I was with you the entire time.”

 

 

It’s a reverie that he lets himself soak in, despite the shouting and grunting and the sickly sound of weapons being lodged into flesh that comes from around him. It’s a reverie, an interval, he’s not sure whether lasting for minutes or hours, in which a simple realization trickles out and echoes around his mind. _Wonwoo came to protect me._

Soonyoung would argue and brush Wonwoo off, telling him he doesn’t need his protection, but Wonwoo proves him wrong before he even opens his mouth. Someone launches an arrow, aiming for the gap in the chainmail wrapped over Soonyoung’s neck, and Wonwoo pushes Soonyoung roughly so it grazes and barely misses his neck.

 

He pulls his sword out of an attacker’s shoulder and turns to him, and his eyes shoot daggers- no, sharp, feather-tipped arrows- into Soonyoung as he hisses his words out. “Now _leave_. Or I’ll be the one to lodge an arrow in your throat, rather than have to see your blood spilled on someone else’s hands.”

 

 

 

Soonyoung can’t abide by rules, but all the same, he finds it hard to break them. He doesn’t leave, as Wonwoo told him to, but he doesn’t stay, as the other generals expect him to. He lingers somewhere in the middle.

 

Stealing away from the camp and into the woods nearby is easy, even if the entire camp is on high alert due to the risk of _Silla_ warriors ambushing overnight. But perhaps everything that doesn’t deal with life and death will seem easy by comparison now. All he hopes for is the sliver of a chance of finding Wonwoo in these woods tonight.

 

Soonyoung might not be able to leave the battlefield, and he doesn’t know if Wonwoo will forgive him for that, but he doesn’t want to die with Wonwoo’s necklace still wrapped around his throat. He needs to return it, and tell Wonwoo to leave if he’s only here to protect him.

 

The sky is dark, robbed of all its stars, and he stands in the middle of a path that cuts between the trees, waiting. As he does, he unclasps the necklace and pulls it out from under his clothes, running his finger along the etchings and cuts on the pendant. He feels antsy and exposed, and he can almost sense that he’s not alone. He feels watched. In fact, the shadows he sees out of the corner of his eye are shifting and moving.

 

“Looking for this?” Soonyoung asks, holding out his hand so the necklace hangs from his fingers, swinging from side to side. Then he turns to find two arms protruding from the shifting darkness.

 

Their last rendezvous starts the same way as their first- with an arrow nocked and aimed at Soonyoung’s temple. It’s a strange kind of déjà-vu he feels, because something warm bubbles in his stomach, and this time, unlike the first time they met, he’s sure it’s not anger.

 

“Why don’t you come a little closer and give it to me?” Wonwoo whispers over the feathered tips of his arrows, which he grips in his fingers. Soonyoung comes closer, and Wonwoo lowers the bow, dropping it to the ground.

 

This time Soonyoung knows that there is an end to his deep black eyes, and there is a face (a beautiful one) underneath the veil and behind the shadows. He’s almost within Wonwoo’s reach now, almost close enough to breathe in his scent and wrap his arms around him.

 

Before, he knew and heard only of the coldness and darkness dwelling in the shadows, and of the pureness and goodness in light. Now, however, he knows better.

 

He knows how loving and gentle his demon’s lips can be. And he knows only of the comfort and warmth he feels when in his enemy’s embrace.

 

Soonyoung closes his eyes and steps into Wonwoo’s shadow.

 

 

**I am your follower in the light,**

**I am invisible at night.**

**I am what you really fear,**

**Close your eyes, and I’ll come near.**

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> So... that's that. I guess. I have more in mind for this story and maybe some day I'll write a little follow-up, but this is a good stopping point, albeit abrupt, right? Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> \- I researched Three Kingdoms era Korea extensively a few months ago out of sheer interest, and I tried keeping everything here as historically accurate and factual as possible, but please go easy on me if I messed anything up! I really apologize if I have..... and despite trying to keep it accurate, I definitely took liberties and changed things up/made stuff up/came to my own conclusions when I couldn't gather enough information from researching (because very specific information about idk mannerisms and social requirements and clothing and fighting styles back then is kind of sparse,) so please do not treat this as a legitimate, historically accurate piece or something.... also, I made up the silver fox myth, but it's definitely the result of a ton of different East Asian/Korean myths and stories I've read.... so, it's not far-off, but it's not a genuine, real myth afaik...  
> \- the thing at the end is a combination of two riddles i love, one about shadows and one about darkness... i don't believe there's anyone i can credit them to (or i would've), because they're random old riddles that i've been told, but the credit is definitely not mine!
> 
> Thank you again for reading, and don't hesitate to comment if you enjoyed it!


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